


a non-sequential list of mistakes; many and varied

by MadHatter13



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Character Development, Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Period-Typical Sexism, Podfic Welcome, middle-aged knight finally confronts the damage inflicted by his sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 17:50:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19278373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadHatter13/pseuds/MadHatter13
Summary: "Silently, Nealan fumes, scarlet from anger. Wyldon waves them off, and hurries down the corridor, and tries in vain to fight the deep abiding sense that he fucked up."---Wyldon's journey through being Kel's greatest detractor to finally treating her as an equal.





	a non-sequential list of mistakes; many and varied

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Seiya234](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seiya234/gifts).



‘Something’s wrong,’ murmurs Eda Bell, and Wyldon can feel a migraine coming on. Because a page is missing and it is exactly the one he expected. What is _un_ expected is that he would have thought if she were late, or went missing, so would her tall and mouthy shadow. The assembled pages have evidently all noticed as well and are talking amongst themselves. The Duke Turomot does not draw attention to it, thankfully, and scolds the pages to order, and the exam begins. Wyldon, keeping an eye on the missing page’s usual co-conspirators, notices Nealan of Queenscove fidgeting as if he wants nothing more than to run from the hall.

In fact he does, when the rather underwhelming exam winds to a final halt – he _bolts_ as soon as the pages are dismissed, his friends calling after him. But before he can get through the door, Wyldon bellows after him. ‘ _Queenscove!’_

The boy jerks to a halt in the door, and turns to give the approaching Wyldon such a glare that if he had let his Gift follow behind it, Wyldon would likely be a greasy stain on the far wall. Wyldon strides over as the hall empties out, some of the audience muttering between themselves. He points the boy towards a nearby alcove with a jerk of his head. He does not shy away from disciplining his charges in public if needs must, but he can see the wisdom of pursuing this where they are not under immediate scrutiny.

Nealan’s fists clench and unclench but instead of glaring at Wyldon he keeps looking over his shoulder as if he hopes to see someone. Wyldon folds his arms and gives him an implacable stare of his own. ‘Well? Do you care to share why Page Mindelan did not attend with the rest of you?’ The boy does not answer immediately, so he adds, ‘Or do you perhaps not know? Did she run away without alerting even her friends?’

The boy’s eyes blaze as he whips around to face him. ‘I have had it up to _here_ with you!’ He says pointing at Wyldon is if he might at Mindelan’s aggressive horse.

Wyldon blinks. This is a new one. Normally the boy sticks to witty insults and general contrariness. ‘Pray tell,’ he replies drily.

‘You know as well as I that she wouldn’t run away – or perhaps you don’t, perhaps you really _are_ as obstinately blind as I always thought you were _–_ but if you cannot see that Kel would only ever miss the exams if she was coerced, then you better retire before it gets you killed!’

This revelation is alarming enough that he bypasses the insults. ‘What are you talking about, coerced?’

‘What am I talking about? What am I talking about? Some heinous herniated bastard kidnapped her maid and threatened her harm unless Kel failed to attend the exams!’ The boy is so angry now that he’s nearly luminescent.

Wyldon snaps to action, gesturing over a passing guard (who by the look of it had definitely been eavesdropping), and instructs him to alert his squad of a missing page and her maid. Then he starts out for the Shans, who know a thing or thousand about finding miscreants in hiding.

But apparently the boy has opened the dam on just a flood of frustration, because he starts with, ‘I’m not finished with you – mmph!’

Wyldon turns to see a gaggle of pages surrounding Queenscover, two holding him back and a third having clamped a hand over his mouth. ‘Begging your pardon, Lord Wyldon,’ says the one who shut him up, Owen of Jesslaw, earnestly. ‘But it seems our friend has contracted a fever of some kind. Permission to take him to the infirmary?’

Silently, Nealan fumes, scarlet from anger. Wyldon waves them off, and hurries down the corridor, and tries in vain to fight the deep abiding sense that he fucked up.

 

* * *

 

It’s a terrible thing to admit to himself, but the reason he let her pass her probationary year wasn’t (just) because of her amazing performance against the bandits, for all that he would not have expected one page out of a hundred to react like a trained commander in that situation. No, it was because he was curious. He eventually went from seeing her as a thorn in his side to be ignored or reprimanded, to seeing her as a valuable and exemplary member of the knighthood. But not without the intermediate stage of thinking her an oddity to be observed just out of sheer curiosity of what she might do next. Whether she succeeded or failed spectacularly, both would be fascinating to observe, rather like a tilting competition in slow motion, except instead of the audience expecting one knight flying from the saddle, everyone was reasonably sure she would get run clean through with the lance.

It fills him with shame now, even if none of it shows up on his face, as he watches her go sit down with her fellow squires after completing the make-up exam. He had spent years bullying a child when he should have been given her the training she deserved as a page. He hadn’t asked her to be just as good as any other page – and there’s a pretty wide margin for error there, no-one can claim there’s an identical performance between Queenscove and Hollyrose. No, he had forced her to be even better, and claimed he was being fair. And then he had been angry to see her succeed so far past his expectations.

He’s actually rather amazed that Ilaine did not skewer him on one of those glaives he’s heard so much about, since she most certainly knows exactly how he has been treating her daughter. Part of him is relieved she is a squire, because it means that she’ll be under the tutelage of some other knight. Another part of him is contrite, because it forces him to face just how hard he had been trying to get her to quit. As uncomfortable as this series of realizations is, he is eager to put them behind him. Keladry of Mindelan is exceptional; the likelihood of another girl page, at least in his time as training master, is slim to none.

 

* * *

 

He hears his friends scoff and rage that a mere first-year squire is on the tilting table – and The _Girl_ at that. He says nothing, because he has lately began to suspect that it is not because they think it disrespectful. Rather it is that they think of knighthood as something special, something almost as otherworldly as the Gift. And if a chit of a girl can manage it, does it mean that by association, _they_ were never all that special to begin with?

He would scoff at that kind of thinking – being a knight is _work_ , being a knight is service, and protection, and mud in your teeth. But he has also began to suspect that _that_ thought is just the very same belief, approached from a different angle. So he says nothing. It’s easier to keep things as they are, to not upset the status quo.

 

* * *

 

He should have expected to come up against her tilting sooner or later. That doesn’t make him any less stone-faced as he stares at the table. His friend, Sir Paxton of Nond, stares at the board, then laughs out loud and slaps him on the back. ‘Try not to tread her into the dirt too hard, old chap! Although some might say she could use the lesson.’

When he mentions it to his wife later, Vivenne says, ‘The one being trained by Sir Raoul?’ Instead of “The Girl?”

‘Yes.’

Vivenne, who knows just as well as anybody that her husband hasn’t been unseated in years, tilts her head, a curious look on her face. ‘Well. Should be interesting, then.’

 

* * *

 

He wins.

He doesn’t think anyone but him realizes it’s the closest he’s come to losing in a decade.

The healer whistles under his breath when he sees Wyldon’s bruised arm, and treats him for a hairline fracture. ‘She’s a hard hitter, that squire. We get a lot of those kinds of injuries when she’s in the field,’ he remarks, as if this is not at all unexpected.

If this is what training with a weighted lance for years as a page will do, maybe he should consider adding it to the training roster, Wyldon thinks. He does his best to ignore the back-slapping and the congratulations from his friends at court, who appear unseemly happy that he unseated a first-year squire. They wouldn’t listen if he objected, probably they’d just think he was showing knightly humility. It has been preying on him lately to find he has it in rather short supply.

 

* * *

 

He should have said something.

He watches the healers carry Joren’s body past on a stretcher, and hears the boy’s father screaming grief and abuse, and realizes that the man mistakenly – no, maliciously, believes this is the fault of Squire Mindelan.

Never mind that Joren’s own towering arrogance was what landed him in a court of law. Never mind his total disregard for others, his steadfast refusal to see people beneath his station is real people. Joren could have been the second coming of Roger of Comté and the damage he wreaked before the Chamber broke him would never have been this extensive - if not for the fact that Wyldon enabled him.

Tell them it’s a tough world and they have to be tougher? Sure. His mistake had been believing this meant having them be tough _on_ others, to pick apart those who should have been their allies. To beat down those qualities that every knight should be lucky to call their own.

There is some parable that the mages like to repeat that he has never before paid much attention to, and it is “The spider does not question the web it spins.” Why change the ways pages were trained? Why change something that had worked for decades – centuries, even? Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

But he _did_ change a lot of things. From the ways pages served at dinner, to training drills, bringing in hand-to-hand combat and tilting practice. Some of it was successful, some of it wasn’t. He wouldn’t be surprised if Duke Baird still resented him for putting pages to train on war horses instead of ponies.

The one thing he _hadn’t_ challenged at all had been the bullying. He had believed without a shadow of doubt that it weeded out the pages who in any case wouldn’t make it. Instead, it had manufactured ones who would all too readily do violence to those they had been sworn to protect.

Wyldon, looking around at his pale-faced fellow knights and the Magistrate and the King, does not feel like the spider at all. No, all of them are just flies, and they’ve willfully entrapped themselves.

He should have said something.

 

* * *

 

‘What would you have said, had our daughters wanted to join the Queen’s Riders?’

Wyldon snapped out of – wherever his thoughts had been taking him, and looked up at his wife, who had in her distinct way appeared next to him without a sound. She doesn’t meet his gaze, but looks down from the steps into the courtyard, where their grandchildren are playing Pirates and Protectors. As they watch, six year old Divon pushes his little sister Yvona into the dirt, but instead of crying she gets up and smacks him with the branch she’s using as a play-sword.

‘The Queen’s Riders?’ He repeats.

‘They are sensible girls,’ Vivenne says. ‘They would never approach their father about becoming pages, when they knew he held such decided views on the matter.’

‘I would not have thought them to have the temperament to want to become fighters,’ he says, for something to say.

Vivenne raises an elegant eyebrow at him. ‘And what about this summer, when Eiralys ran her brother-in-law’s fief while he was away and she and Lady Selena trapped half the Scanran pirates in a controlled windmill explosion?’

‘That was different,’ says Wyldon. ‘That was just –‘

‘Just?’

‘Just…’

Oh. That feeling is back again. He wonders if he ever, in their entire marriage, acknowledged that when he is not at home, she runs the place, takes care of the people under their protection, wrangles logistics and supplies and troops and everyday tragedies and miracles. Of course he _knew_ that she did. He wasn’t under the impression that the place ran itself in his absence. But did he ever willingly acknowledge it as an important act of service to the crown, as important, or possibly more so than gallivanting around the countryside with a sword? He dearly hopes he did, for the sake his marriage.

He gives the question the answer it deserved. ‘No. I would not have allowed it.’

She does not seem at all surprised. ‘I see.’

‘But I’m finally beginning to think that I was wrong. Although it is far too late to say such things now.’ He had, after all, raised them with the expectation that such a thing never _would_ be allowed. Raised them with ideas as to what constituted their value as human beings. That, perhaps more than anything else, made sure the question was never raised.

‘Is it?’ She says, gesturing down the steps to where the kids have given up their wrestling and have instead moved onto death-defying circus acts, or at least death-defying from the point of view of a six year old. ‘Is it too late for them?’ The look in her eyes is says much more than her words. _Will you wash your hands of the responsibility of undoing your own mistakes?_

 

* * *

 

 

Owen of Jesslaw is, for all that he is a hellion, an entertaining one. Wyldon never paid him any more attention as a page then he had the others, except when he got himself into trouble. It‘s like wrangling an eager puppy to get him to do as he‘s told and not run off whenever he sees a butterfly. But Wyldon has been a dog-wrangler most of his life, although he tries to resist the urge to pick the boy up by the scruff of his neck when he gets too excited.

Owen also talks a great deal about his friends, most notably Keladry of Mindelan. Wyldon thinks, cynically, that he likely has a crush on her. But it isn‘t for a while that he realizes that it is instead heartfelt admiration, bordering on hero-worship. When Owen trips up one evening and tells him of the time she rescued him from Joren and his gang, he begins to see why.

‘And so you came to the natural conclusion that having an all-out brawl with your fellow pages every night would be the best solution?’ He drawled, finishing a spending report and setting it aside for the next document.

Owen’s face goes red. ‘Um...’

‘Relax, Jesslaw, I can’t exactly punish you for something you did as a page.’ Not in this case. Thinking back again (as he frequently does these days) to Joren, there were times when he should have.

‘Well, it really was all rather jolly, m’lord.’ Says Owen sheepishly. ‘And they just wouldn’t let up! They were the sort to step on your toes and then yell at you for not standing up straight. Anyway, it was good practice for bandit hunting.’

That’s another thing – even if he would never admit it, they agree on what constitutes “real work”. He had done his duty to the realm as training master, but it had chafed – no, grated, to be stuck firmly in Corus, away from what he had trained for, what he had dedicated his life to before that hurrock had put him out of commission, almost for good. The wounds still ache when the weather acts up, and it does that a lot out here at the northern border. But he’ll take it any day if it means that he’s doing his job.

And he can think of a certain other person who agrees on this definition of real work.

 

* * *

 

There is something about Keladry of Mindelan. It is entirely unmagical, and has nothing to do with fate or destiny or such highbrow concepts which in any case he’s never had much time for. But whatever it is, it has inspired, in sequence, i) an entire company of the King’s Own, ii) a number of her own fellow knights and yearmates, iii) an assortment of conscripted soldiers and convicts and iv) his own damned squire, to follow her into treason, enemy territory and almost-certain death. In no particular order.

Wyldon has not officially lost his temper in public for more than a decade; his response to anger and bewilderment is generally to turn as stoic as a tree stump (yes, he knows about the nickname). But after receiving the news, he waited until the messenger and Raoul had left him by himself, got up, carefully locked the door, went into his own chambers, closed _that_ door, and screamed into a pillow. He didn’t feel any better, but at least it was over and done with.

On his desk sits an incomplete report to the King about the destruction of Haven, and it mocks him. He glares at it out of the corner of his eye. Maybe if he goes to attend to all the other duties he must see to, it will have miraculously finished itself.

It’s still there when he gets back.

Maybe he can put it off until they come to their senses and return – surely they must realize this is a suicide mission. But no. Mindelan will not turn back, and as long as she does not, they will follow her, perhaps most of all because she did not ask them to. Even if the sensible thing would be to chain her to her horse and bring her home by force. Goldenlake had that right, at least.

But, as he has learned increasingly and to his great chagrin these last few years, often the “sensible” thing is not the right thing.

Damage control. As far as anyone knows, Domitan’s squad is away on “official business,” _nothing_ to do with the errant knight’s disappearance, honest. But how long can he make excuses for the other knights? How can he explain Jesslaw’s disappearance?

He realizes to his distant horror but no great surprise that whatever happened to the lot of them to cause them to follow her into Scanra is happening to him as well. He internally scoffs at those who had tried to argue that Mindelan had been magicked to succeed, or secretly had a Gift of her own. There are things growing on the underside of rocks that have more magical Gift than Keladry of Mindelan. It is simply that to her, everyone is a person; human, noble, peasant, animal. She is unquestionably loyal to others, so she inspires loyalty in return.

He sighs, and goes off to uphold loyalty - to one who may soon be declared an official traitor - in favour of duty to his king.

 

* * *

 

 

The fact that she just kneels as soon as she sees him, as if she expect him to wield the executioner’s axe himself, breaks his heart a little bit. He had wondered if she would try to run away before she got to the boarder, or to play it off as if nothing had happened. _What refugees? Oh,_ those _refugees? Found them wandering in the woods, sir  – real puzzler, but they definitely aren’t the same ones that were taken by the enemy, no sir._

Instead, she just kneels, ready for judgment, ready for Traitor’s Hill. Would she become a martyr, Wyldon wonders, if she were executed? Would the peasants she rescued see the evil of the state-sanctioned murder a knight who had saved their lives rather than follow meaningless orders? Of course they would.

Thankfully this will not be necessary. If the King wants to press charges of treason, he can take it up with Wyldon, who gave the wrong orders. Besides, he’s getting old. Being put out to pasture for refusing to punish a knight under his charge would be much less of a loss to the kingdom than Mindelan on the executioner’s block. The realm will need her for as long as she is willing to serve it.

So he says something.

“You are a true knight, Keladry of Mindelan,” he tells her. “I am honored to know you.”

 

* * *

 

‘She’s a chip off the old block, eh?’

Wyldon glances at Jesslaw’s own Squire, Timon of haMinch, an impudent boy who has more in common with Queenscove than his master. He has a tendency to act utterly familiar even with his superiors, and is grinning at Wyldon most cheekily. Across the training yard, Keladry stands in front of rows of pages - girls and boys both - and calls out glaive drills to her charges.

‘Pardon?’ Says Wyldon.

‘You were her training master, right? You’re quite similar, you know. Same stoic face. Not to mention she took over after you!’

‘With several other training masters in the interim,’ Wyldon reminds him. Among the pages is a wiry girl with a determined expression; his youngest granddaughter Sina. Neither she, nor the two other girls in her year, were ever made to be on probation.

Timon waves a dismissive hand. ‘Just take the compliment – you trained her good. She reminds me of you!’

If anyone has right to claim such an honor, it would be Goldenlake, but Wyldon accepts the compliment for what it is. ‘I should be so lucky,’ he says, ‘To be anything like her.’

END

**Author's Note:**

> two things I didn't work into this fic but wish I could:  
> a) in canon, Owen eventually marries Wyldon's daughter and becomes his son-in-law. don't tell me you don't want to see THAT road trip comedy.  
> b) alanna finally being free of her years long Yelling At Conservatives ban and finally sending Wyldon a note after Kel gets her shield that just says "FUCK YOU. Strong letter to follow."


End file.
